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Aboriginal Community

This short discussion is part of a 'Community Study' learning module, and should is not intended to be used outside that context.

If we agree with Cohen that a community is a word which creates the idea of group or category of people, who say they have something in common with each other which distinguishes them in a significant way from other groups, we can see that there may be different kinds of Aboriginal communities.

What a community is, how it is defined and where its symbolic, geographical and cultural boundaries are depends very much of the members of the community. Most community profiles will be profiles of local Aboriginal communities, but profiles of other kinds of Aboriginal community are possible. Within the wide variation among Aboriginal communities, however, some broad patterns can be seen.

Extended families are important in Aboriginal community life. The forms of extended family organisation vary among traditional, rural and urban Aboriginal communities, with differences between who is counted as a family member, how family members relate to each other and what the obligations to extended family members are. It is important to know how families operate in each community. Compared to Western or non-indigenous social life, Aboriginal communities are egalitarian. Often there are ways of making sure no member of the community either falls down to low, or climbs up too high. Members of Aboriginal some communities talk about the importance of sharing and caring.

Aboriginal communities usually maintain a distance between themselves and the non-indigenous community. How this boundary is maintained varies from place to place, and is an important element in community identity. No less important are the traditional lore, culture and Aboriginal identity of community members.

Here are some common preconceptions or assumptions about Aboriginal or other communities. How true do you think the following are? Do they apply to the community you are profiling?

1. Communities are united, with common interests.
   
2. Community members usually cooperate and help the community.
   
3. Community development will be easier where there is a strong shared feeling of community.
   
4. Tradition generally blocks progress.
   
5. Communities enshrine spiritual values.
   
6. Communities have ‘felt needs’, and we can find out what they are.
   
7. Each community has people who can speak on their behalf.
   
8. Each community has community leaders, who are generally known and can be identified fairly easily.
   
9. Everybody wants a higher level of living and welcomes change.
   
10. All Aboriginal communities have something in common with each other.
    
11. Anglo-Australians do not understand what community means.

Cohen A. P. (1985) The symbolic construction of community, Tavistock, London.

Perkins, C. 1989, 'Governments and Aboriginal communities', in Australian Journal of Public Administration, vol. 48, pp. 21-28.

Sykes, R. 1986, Incentive, Achievement and Community: An Analysis of Black Viewpoints on Issues Relating to Black Australian Education, Sydney University Press, Sydney.